In accordance with the New York State Administrative Procedures Act (SAPA), the proposed DFS rules for virtual currency firms will be published in the New York State Register’s July 23, 2014 edition, which begins a 45-day public comment period. After that public comment period, the rules are subject to additional review and revision based on that public feedback before DFS finalizes them.

Additionally, DFS is today immediately publishing a copy of the regulations on the website Reddit. Earlier this year, Superintendent Lawsky hosted an “Ask Me Anything” forum on Reddit about DFS’ work on virtual currency regulation, which generated more than 1,200 public comments. Links to the proposed rules are also being tweeted out from the DFS Twitter handle (@NYDFS) and Superintendent Lawsky’s Twitter handle (@BenLawsky).

Robin Harding is the FT's US economics editor, based in Washington. Prior to this, he was based in Tokyo, covering the Bank of Japan and Japan's technology sector, and in London as an economics leader writer. Robin studied economics at Cambridge and has a masters in economics from Hitotsubashi University, where he was a Monbusho scholar. Before joining the FT, Robin worked in asset management and banking.

The CEA reaches similar conclusions to a number of other studies. Most of the decline in labour force participation was demographic, due to an aging population; a modest proportion was due to the recession and its unusual severity. Read more

A curious feature of current conditions is that the explanation for the phenomenon is often taken to be self-evident. It’s caused by QE and low interest rates. It’s caused by lower trading volumes from hedge funds. It’s caused by lower risk appetite (even though risk premia are highly compressed). It’s caused by crisis fatigue and complacency.

Chris Giles has been the economics editor of the Financial Times since 2004. Based in London, he writes about international economic trends and the British economy. Before reporting economics for the Financial Times, he wrote editorials for the paper, reported for the BBC, worked as a regulator of the broadcasting industry and undertook research for the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

In an FT.com column today, I highlighted the surprising strength of the UK labour market outside London. This is important, for if London was dominant and overheating, monetary policy might have to tighten too late for London, but too early for the rest of the UK. Fortunately, this is not the case.

But one of the limitations of a column is that, short of boring people to death with written numbers, it is difficult to demonstrate the evidence fully. So here is a chart-based version of the same argument. Read more

Set the scepticism dial to 10 — on the basis that memories of German carmaker buying Chrysler is the sort of thing to make car executives wake up in a cold sweat. However Fiat shares were up more than 4 per cent at pixel time for a reason…

That reason is a story in the German manager magazin which reports major shareholders are in conversation about a potential takeover of Fiat by VW, with Chrysler the key to solving VW’s US problems.

Markets: Asia-Pacific stocks were on track for a fourth daily gain, after global stocks rose overnight as news of a mega-bid in the US media sector revived animal spirits. Improving global sentiment set the tone for greater risk appetite. The S&P 500 rose 0.4 per cent in New York, partly thanks to corporate earnings and economic data, but also after confirmation that Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox had proposed buying Time Warner last month in an $80bn deal. The cash and stock offer was rebuffed but Time Warner shares soared 17 per cent on Wednesday. (FT’s Global Markets Overview) Read more